Hon Chairperson, let me hasten to say that the IFP supports the Minister's intentions as contained in her budget speech. But, of course, the reality out there tells a different story, and I will try to sketch some of the elements of that reality, hoping that straight talk will not break any friendships.
Hon Minister, I want to argue that any reasonable man or woman would accept that our education system is in dire straits. A recent in-depth report by the international news channel Al Jazeera called South Africa's children "a generation at stake". A wasted future is what many of South Africa's children face. Without the prospect of a proper education and therefore a proper job later in life, their futures are indeed at stake.
Their future prospects are further diminished by falling standards in education. While South Africa has made impressive strides towards meeting the delivery of primary education for all, in the process the quality of education has dropped. According to some surveys, South Africa is falling behind countries like Mozambique and Zimbabwe. These are the stark realities we face today and which we must address through the department's budget which is being tabled here.
Since attaining democracy, South Africa has increased access to education dramatically. But, hon Minister, for a country that spends proportionally more of its GDP on education than the international norm, somewhere somehow we have gone wrong.
There are challenges. What are these challenges? Firstly, 18 schools achieved a zero matric pass rate in 2010. Five of these schools were in the Eastern Cape, four in Limpopo, three in KwaZulu-Natal, one in Gauteng and one in the Free State. This statistic remains unchanged from 2009. The question is: Are these schools being put under any spotlight by the department? Is the department rendering immediate emergency assistance at these schools? Have we commissioned critical analytical studies to ascertain what the causes of these zero pass rates are?
Secondly, despite a massive portion of the budget being allocated to infrastructure each year, we still have about 400 mud schools, all in the Eastern Cape. We should no longer tolerate a situation where children go to school in buildings made of mud, or without water or electricity. Government statistics have recently shown that 3 600 of the schools in this country are without electrification, 2 500 are without adequate water supply, and an astonishing 92% of our schools are without libraries.